0.37 BETA 7
-- FIRST, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR --
Some time ago I (Nicola) mistakenly removed Lotto Fun because I thought it was
a gambling machine. After some more careful evaluation, it is evident that
this is a game of skill, therefore it is now supported again. This was my
mistake and I apologize for that.
As a reminder, the exclusion of gambling machines is purely technical, not
moral or legal. Gambling machines are not video games, and just like MAME
doesn't support mechanical pinballs (but it supports software pinballs), it
also doesn't support gambling machines (but it supports games with a gambling
theme). Both mechanical pinballs and gambling machines can be found in the
same places where video games are; this doesn't make them all the same thing.
The distinction between gambling machines and video games is not arbitrary:
gambling machines usually require more money to play than a video game (e.g.
10 tokens to start), and they have settings that allow the operator to decide
how much of the money that comes in should come out. No amount of skill can
improve a player's chances of winning: this is entirely predetermined by the
machine.
-- WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR USUAL PROGRAMMING --
These drivers have improved GRAPHICS:
-------------------------------------
- Stars in Strider and Forgotten Worlds. [Nicola Salmoria, Tim Lindquist]
- Fixed sprite/tile priority in Black Tiger. [Nicola Salmoria]
- Fixed startup garbage in Vastar. [Zsolt Vasvari]
Other drivers changes:
----------------------
- Fixed the Pokey emulation so that the Tempest reset bug is fixed, this time
for real and forever. [Juergen Buchmueller]
Source:
-------
- Important for porters: changes to the dirty marking system. The blitting
code was previously required to support two types of dirty marking: a
"correct" one, used for vector games, where only the screen portions marked
dirty during the current frame should be copied to the video card; and a
"wrong" one, relying on a hack, where the blitter was also required to
remember the dirty regions from *previous* frame, and copy those as well.
Only the "correct" one is left, which should somewhat simplify dirty
handling in the OS dependant code. Moreover, the code must not check for
VIDEO_TYPE_VECTOR to know whether to use dirty marking: it must check only
VIDEO_SUPPORTS_DIRTY, which is set for vector games.
- Important for porters: the HAS_XXX constants for cpu and sound emulation are
no longer #defined in cpuintrf.h if they were not already defined. They are
set by the makefile (rules.mak). If you are not using that in your port,
you'll have to make sure that all constants are initialized somewhere.
- Removed osd_led_w(); instead, an additional leds_status parameter is passed
to osd_update_video_and_audio(). Drivers now have to use set_led_status().
- [DOS] The makefile now uses GNUs mkdir instead of the built-in one. If you
don't have mkdir you can find it here:
http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/gnuish/gnufut21.zip
- Added VIDEO_PIXEL_ASPECT_RATIO_2_1, this should be honored by the OS
dependant code just like VIDEO_PIXEL_ASPECT_RATIO_1_2.
- Backdrops are handled by the core like overlays, specific support in the
drivers is no longer necessary. [Mathis Rosenhauer]
New games supported:
--------------------
dozens of PlayChoice-10 games [Ernesto Corvi]
Mahou Daisakusen [Yochizo]
Shippu Mahou Daisakusen [Yochizo]
Hot Pinball [Nicola Salmoria]
Fantasia [Nicola Salmoria]
New Fantasia [Nicola Salmoria]
Miss World '96 Nude [Nicola Salmoria]
Big Twin [Nicola Salmoria]
World Beach Volley [Nicola Salmoria]
Xexex [Olivier Galibert]
Mag Max [Takahiro Nogi, Jarek Burczynski]
Thief [Phil Stroffolino]
NATO Defense [Phil Stroffolino]
Super Invader Attack [Mike Coates]
Buggy Challenge (preliminary, feedback needed) [Ernesto Corvi, Nicola Salmoria]
Knuckle Joe [Ernesto Corvi]
New clones supported:
---------------------
Winter Bobble (= Snow Bros) [David Haywood]